


Queer

by cupiscent



Series: Glimmer [1]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-10
Updated: 2002-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupiscent/pseuds/cupiscent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liv sees more than there appears between two co-stars.  Or does she?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queer

What do a large group of actors do after a long week of shooting?

Watch a movie, of course.

It had become something of a tradition, most of the cast invading Orlando's room (it was fairly central) of a Sunday night to lounge and watch whatever terrible films the hobbits were going to inflict upon them.

Personally, Liv blamed Elijah. That boy had the worst sort of schlock taste in movies.

She certainly didn't come to watch. In fact, half the time she fell asleep in the middle of the first film, sprawled crosswise on the bed with Miranda and Cate, listening to the distant movie, and the murmuring conversations in the room. The hobbits stretched out on the floor between the bed and the TV were rarely quiet. On the other side of the room, Orlando had claimed the lone comfy armchair as right of host. The 'grown-ups' - Viggo, Sean and David - pulled up a patch of floor in front of the armchair, while the women had claimed the bed for their own. On the rare occasions Ian showed up, he pulled up a desk chair at the back, dignified and removed from the tussles that took place in front of the TV.

No, she didn't come to watch, just to revel. The room was full to bursting, and the atmosphere was somehow alive and soothing, all at once. It was here that the camaraderie really resided, in the teasing, squabbling, laughing Sunday evenings. It relaxed her better than an early night, than a night out on the town, recharged her batteries for the new week.

As always, half the audience fled after the first movie, leaving Liv alone on the bed, and large gaps on the floor, with only the hobbits and Viggo remaining, and Orlando in his chair. Liv stretched out lengthways on the bed, stealing a pillow from the head to snuggle up with at the foot.

She was still too charged to sleep, but too tired, too disconnected, to manage to take in much of the movie. The atmosphere in the room was quieter now, less vibrant, more soothing than ever. There was no light save the splash from the screen, spilling and flickering over the bodies in front of it. It was unreal, and Liv found herself drifting, half-dozing, mind wandering.

She turned her head slightly, to get more comfortable. Eyes under half-closed lids slipped across the room, over silvered hobbit-heads, darkened carpet broken by the long sprawl of Viggo's legs, stretched out in front of him, crossed lazily at the ankle. Shadow and light, and she shifted again.

With her dislocation, and the weird effect of the television light, it took time - seconds, minutes, hours - to realise what she saw, what her eyes were fixed upon. She blinked, but it was still the same.

When had they shifted? Could have been any time, no one would have noticed in the human tangle. Orlando slouched down in his chair with that boneless grace, jean-clad legs lolling wide. Leaning back, resting against the chair between them, was Viggo's dark, shaggy head.

Fine, a little voice in the back of Liv's head said. It's more comfortable that way.

One of Orlando's legs stretched straight, the other was bent, propped up, knee a right angle. Liv's eyes had a mind of their own that wasn't the numb, blank one in her head; they traced a line from Viggo's head, unshaven face bizarre in a flash of light, down his shoulder, along his arm, resting on Orlando's straight knee, elbow on his thigh, hand at rest on his shin. It looked... comfortable.

Yes, comfortable. Same little voice, resolute, determined.

But her eyes went back to Viggo's head, that tousled mess of hair she'd teased him about only this morning, the hand tangled in it. Long, pale fingers, not at rest, smoothing, pushing, soothing, clenching, travelling over his scalp, like massaging a cat, and Viggo stretched under the hand. Arched and tilted his head back so those pale fingers came forward, over his forehead, his nose. Smoothed back as Viggo tilted forward again, down behind his ear, rough jaw, curling around his neck, throat, a caress now, and Viggo turned his head into the hand, leaned, and Liv could almost hear the sandpaper sound of his stubbled cheek against Orlando's jeans until an explosion from the TV drowned it out.

Her eyes flicked up to Orlando's face, those brown eyes heavy-lidded, face blank as it was bathed in orange fire. Flicked back down, to where Viggo's hand had moved, ever-so-slightly, to grip the shin it rested upon, fingers only faintly tightened.

The little voice was silent.

Viggo shifted, sat up a little straighter, one leg sliding up from straight to bent, a casual move, but Liv had seen it before in other men, had smugly caused it to be done; the movement of a man concealing the first stirrings of an erection.

Oh God, she was holding her breath. Released it, blinked, looked away, mind slowly waking, starting to turn. She stared at the TV, as if she'd never seen it before, the incomprehensible shapes moving on it filtered through Elijah and Dom squabbling over popcorn. Somehow jarring, too real.

When she slid a glance sideways, from the corner of her eye, they were still there. Had she expected them to disappear? Still there, solid, real. Relaxed, lounging, comfortable, that was all. Orlando's hands were on the arms of the chair, Viggo slouched, one arm cast over the younger man's leg.

Comfortable, the little voice whispered. Camaraderie. Nothing else. Liv blinked. They both stared straight ahead, the television flicker reflected in their eyes.

Liv lowered her head onto the pillow, but drifting came harder this time, and she no longer felt so relaxed. Somehow, she dozed, amid confused, jumbled dreams, only to be woken by ballistic hobbits. Elijah landed with a whoop on the bed beside her, bouncing with aggravating energy.

"Oi!" Orlando, voice smooth and laughing. "Some of us have to sleep on that tonight, brat!" There was a click, and the room filled with burnt-orange light from the lamp beside his chair.

She looked up quickly, almost convinced that everything she'd seen had been merely another half-asleep dream. But as the hobbits gleefully invaded the bed, and Orlando laughed, Viggo stretched, and braced himself with a hand on each of Orlando's knees to lever himself upright.

And was she imagining the way his hands lingered, pressure on Orlando's thighs, just above the knee?

Was she imagining Orlando's knees closing slightly, as if to grip, slide down, Viggo's body as it rose fluidly to vertical?

Was she imagining Viggo's hand slipping over Orlando's shoulder, sliding up the back of the chair?

Could be merely movement, merely coincidence, merely everything natural.

Viggo called: "Good night hobbits, Liv," from the door, and closed it behind him as Orlando looked over to him, fleeting, lingering. She met his eyes on the way back, locking in silence even as Billy crash-tackled Dom beside her, and Elijah rolled around, laughing.

"I think it's time I fell asleep in my own bed," she said, wondering why her voice quavered ever so slightly.

She fled, from the room, from pillow-fighting hobbits, from the small smile on Orlando's face and a strange glimmer in his eyes and the hand he'd waved at her as he called good night. The hand she'd seen luxuriating in Viggo's hair.

Or had she?

Imagined... merely... sleep, need sleep, needed to wake in the morning and be certain again. Forget weird light, and jeans-clad legs and hands.

Forget the queer sensation in her stomach that lingered still.


End file.
